Fighting Sin by Awakening Affections
The goal of the Christian life is not external conformity or mindless action, but a passionate love for God informed by the mind and embraced by the will. So the path forward is not to decrease one’s affections but rather to enlarge them and fill them with “heavenly things.” Here one is not trying to escape the painful realities of this life but rather endeavoring to reframe one’s perspective of life around a much larger canvas that encompasses all of reality. To respond to the distorting nature of sin you must set your affections on the beauty and glory of God, the...
read moreMissional Church Made Simple
This is a helpful introduction to the difference between missional and attractional models of being the Church. However, this understanding of missional church is a tad individualistic. The Church should be doing mission as a community, locked arm-in-arm, and living everyday lives together with Gospel intentionality. One of the pitfalls of the missional model is the over-reaction against Christian community, where we see individuals leaving to become vigilante missionaries and eschewing all meaningful ties to the local church. Mission without community is not mission at all. Some good books...
read moreThe Gospel in 3 Words
“Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be adoption through propitiation, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.” —J.I. Packer, Knowing...
read moreThe Cure for Cold Religion
I came across this quote today by Thomas Watson and it got me thinking about a study I just did on Romans 8:1-11, about life in the Spirit and being spiritually minded. Watson writes: The reason our affections are so chilled and cold in religion-is that we do not warm them with thoughts of God. Hold a magnifying glass to the sun, and the glass burns that which is near to it. So when our thoughts are lifted up to Christ, the Sun of righteousness, our affections are set on fire. No sooner had the spouse been thinking upon her Savior’s beauty-but she fell into love-sickness. (Song of...
read moreResolved…To Study the Bible
From Jonathan Edwards’s “Resolutions“: 28. Resolved: To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the...
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